UIC grad student talks about finding Eastland disaster film footage

A graduate student has found the first-known film clips of the SS Eastland ship disaster that left 844 people dead in 1915. The ship was headed to a company picnic when it capsized in the Chicago River.

A graduate student has found the first-known film clips of the SS Eastland ship disaster that left 844 people dead in 1915. The ship was headed to a company picnic when it capsized in the Chicago River.

Jeff Nichols has lived in Chicago for 20 years, so when he stumbled upon 100-year-old film clips of the SS Eastland disaster, the UIC graduate student knew the significance of what he had found.

"It's as easily recognizable to someone who cares about Chicago history as the Titanic, so I knew what I had right away," Nichols said. "I knew folks would go, 'Wow,' even if they had seen the clip before."

Nichols, a University of Illinois at Chicago Ph.D. candidate, was working on a dissertation involving Chicago-related World War I propaganda when he found the first known film footage of the July 1915 tragedy, during which a ship carrying 2,500 people on their way to a company picnic capsized in the Chicago River, killing 844.

Nichols' discovery came Thursday during a search of a European Union-funded website. The Eastland film clips were taken from digitized Dutch news reels and were sandwiched in the middle of several minutes of unrelated material.

"If you look at the news reels, it's mostly war news, trivial news, local news," Nichols said. "It's European news, and then you see the title card for the Eastland."

On Friday, Nichols posted links to the footage on the Facebook page of the Eastland Disaster Historical Society, which in turn posted the links on its website, at http://www.eastlanddisaster.org/news.

The first Eastland clip lasts 55 seconds and shows volunteers and first responders walking on the hull of the ship. The second, which is 30 seconds, shows the Eastland being righted.

Nichols found the exact copy of one of the clips in another museum, leading him to believe that copies of the footage were sent to several locations. Most of the copies, he guessed, either perished for lack of funding to preserve them or could be stuck in a basement somewhere, waiting to be digitized.

"These (lost) films are discovered where you'd least expect them, so it's not a surprise that it was in the Netherlands," Nichols said. "If it were close at hand, then it would have been discovered a long time ago."

Ted Wachholz, chief historian for the Eastland Disaster Historical Society, praised Nichols for sharing the footage so freely, but Nichols said there was nothing to do but share it.

"It completely defeats the purpose to hoard the thing," Nichols said. "It's something that should be shared, and it's easily shared with lots of folks."

As for his personal benefit, the discovery may become a line in his dissertation, if that.

A large crowd of horrified spectators watched as the SS Eastland -- only a few feet from the shore of the Chicago River downtown -- turned on its side. It was in just 20 feet of water, but that was deep enough to drown 844 people who were trapped or trampled below decks.

"It doesn't fit into my dissertation," Nichols said. "I think it's important, but there's only so many things you can pack in a dissertation."